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Abstract

Emerging adults (ages 18-25) with type 1 diabetes are a vulnerable population as they transition from the family home and their pediatric healthcare providers and deal with multiple competing demands. There is very little literature addressing those in this developmental group who use insulin pump technology for diabetes self-management. Listening to the voices of emerging adults who use insulin pump technology will increase our understanding of their experience and will give health care providers the opportunity to develop evidence based practice based on their lived experiences. The qualitative research, using the hermeneutic phenomenological approach described by Max van Manen, provides a deeper understanding of the day-to-day journey of the emerging adult. Four themes represent the essences that were ultimately viewed as strategies used by emerging adults as they crossed from adolescence to adulthood with type 1 diabetes and an insulin pump. This journey is presented metaphorically as learning to walk a tightrope.